This comical adventure begins for Charles Edwards after reporting to Vietnam as a member of the Brown Water Navy stationed in the Mekong Delta assigned to the Mobile Riverine Task Force 117. With a little help from his friend, Petty Officer Dan, Charles quickly matures from his humble beginnings as an 18-year-old city boy from Baltimore. For Vietnam veterans, this story will bring back precious memories that will make them say, Yeah, I remember doing stuff like that. That part of the war was fun. For those who never served in the military will find this an enjoyable eye-opener to military life.
Just before the dawn of the Global War on Terror, Kieran Michael Lalor left his career as a high school social studies teacher, endeavoring to fulfill his lifelong dream. Lalor followed his father and brothers footsteps into the United States Marine Corps. This Recruit presents Lalors nightly journal entries, beginning with the uneasy trip to the recruiters office and the eerily quiet midnight bus ride to Parris Island. Lalor describes the wicked combination of fatigue, nerves, disorientation, misery, loneliness, and homesickness that conspire to keep him from his goalalong with the hours of close order drill, push-ups, hand-to-hand combat training, the pit, and the unrelenting mind games. Witness the nasty recruit-on-recruit infighting that results when young men struggle to survive while being pushed past their limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. Gaze at the target from the five hundred yard line on Qualification Day, when failure means at least an extra two weeks on the island and the added humiliation of failing the quintessential test of a Marine. Experience the rappel tower, night firing, the infiltration courses, and long, back-crushing humps. Struggle with Lalor and his platoon as they try to overcome the Crucible, the final obstacle before claiming the title of United States Marine.
The book details the adventures of the eldest son of a working-class family from the urban Midwest who enters the army in the late 1960s and is transformed from a naive cowboy idolizer into a devious, larcenous, gun-carrying reprobate. He delves into the world of black market activities, prostitutes, drugs, and race relations and emerges a callous man for whom death is divided into two basic classes: bodies that are sent away and those that are dismissed as the impersonal enemy. Raised in an all-white environment and having had only one long-term exposure to a person of color, during a short period attending a seminary, he was taught to treat others fairly or to ignore them if their behavior warranted it. In the army, he encounters young men from every part of the country. Some require special treatment, while others introduce him to layers of the spectrum of life, which he did not know existed. He receives specialized training and, instead of being sent directly to Vietnam, is dispatched to Germany to participate in the Cold War in a very active manner. While in the army from 1967 to 1970, he wrote over five hundred letters, many to a girl with whom relations ended upon his return from Vietnam. She gave all the letters back, and they stayed on a shelf, waiting to fulfill the promise to someday write a book about the things that happened. His father also returned the letters that were written to him, which described the language used, the abuse suffered, and the status of race and homosexual relations, as well as the horrors of war, in no uncertain terms. The letters remained untouched for nearly fifty years, but he would sometimes recount an incident to friends or family, receiving in return an urging to write the stories for them. His older daughter chronologically organized the letters, while his other daughter edited the manuscript as it was being written. The idea to write this book, as well as its title, struck while joking with fellow GI’s in the barracks about someday telling the world that no one would believe the things they were doing in the name of serving their country. They would develop audacious pranks to outdo one another or minimalize a situation and just be glad to live another day. They often remarked about spending parents’ and grandparents’ tax money on atrocious wastes of effort and material. The military personnel during the late ’60s fit three distinct categories: juicers, heads, and straights. The first included men from every state, since almost everyone drank now and then. The second referred to the use of acid by some, while smokers and dopers fit right in. Lastly, there were some individuals who preferred not to get wasted by any means. Homosexuals and blacks could occupy any of the groups. The story details army life for a middle-class Midwest man who is introduced to conditions and concepts he had never imagined in Europe, then in the States, and finally in Vietnam. The intended audience is adult, mostly because of the language and the portrayal of man’s cruelty to man, while on the other hand, the book is both nostalgic as well as informative.
Two different people. Two different personalities. Two mouths that just have to always have the last word all the time. Desmond isn’t the type of guy that Shaniqua is used to. Always spoiled by her father and her brother, she was used to getting her way. While Desmond is willing to give her anything that her heart desires, he is dishing out tough love to her as well. Desmond and Shaniqua could be Miami’s hood couple but it’s Desmond’s, baby mama Harlem who just won’t let that happen. We were introduced to the start of Desmond’s and Shaniqua’s relationship in Christmas in Miami, and now that we’ve started, the hardest part is trying to keep the two of them together.
The memoir as literature is not common, and a rare treat. Once Around The Block is an adventure story, told in a unique voice, by a superb storyteller. The author weaves a narrative from a poignant childhood in Brooklyn, the mysteries of sex, humor and appreciation for every odd situation, including the unimaginable experience of the First Wave D-Day landing and the painful losses of WWII. Staff Sergeant Bernhardt Krein, New York City Firefighter "Barney" Krein, Adventure Traveler Bernie Krein tells compelling, desperate, marvelous tales of surviving and thriving in the world of the recent past.
Two small southern towns find themselves connected by several unexplained tragedies. That turn their peaceful country lifestyle into turmoil and suspicion One sadistic woman will do anything and kill anyone to get what she wants A step up to the top of the elite echelon. Can detective Herschel stop her before she kills again? It all comes together during Dogwood Summer, the hottest part of the spring, during the bloom of the Dogwood Tree.
The declaration that a work of art is “about sex” is often announced to the public as a scandal after which there is nothing else to say about the work or the artist-controversy concludes a conversation when instead it should begin a new one. Moving beyond debates about pornography and censorship, Jennifer Doyle shows us that sex in art is as diverse as sex in everyday life: exciting, ordinary, emotional, traumatic, embarrassing, funny, even profoundly boring. Sex Objects examines the reception and frequent misunderstanding of highly sexualized images, words, and performances. In chapters on the “boring parts” of Moby-Dick, the scandals that dogged the painter Thomas Eakins, the role of women in Andy Warhol's Factory films, “bad sex” and Tracey Emin's crudely evocative line drawings, and L.A. artist Vaginal Davis's pornographic parodies of Vanessa Beecroft's performances, Sex Objects challenges simplistic readings of sexualized art and instead investigates what such works can tell us about the nature of desire. In Sex Objects, Doyle offers a creative and original exploration of how and where art and sex connect, arguing that to proclaim a piece of art “about sex” reveals surprisingly little about the work, the artist, or the spectator. Deftly interweaving anecdotal and personal writing with critical, feminist, and queer theory, she reimagines the relationship between sex and art in order to better understand how the two meet-and why it matters. Jennifer Doyle is associate professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is coeditor, with Jonathan Flatley and Jos Esteban Muoz, of Pop Out: Queer Warhol.
This is not your run-of-the-mill fitness book. Developed by world-renowned gluteal expert Bret Contreras, Strong Curves offers an extensive fitness and nutrition guide for women seeking to improve their physique, function, strength, and mobility. Contreras spent the last eighteen years researching and field-testing the best methods for building better butts and shapelier bodies. In Strong Curves, he offers the programs that have proven effective time and time again with his clients, allowing you to develop lean muscle, rounded glutes, and greater confidence. Each page is packed with information decoding the female anatomy, providing a better understanding as to why most fitness programs fail to help women reach their goals. With a comprehensive nutritional guide and over 200 strength exercises, this book gets women off the treadmill and furnishes their drive to achieve strength, power, and sexy curves from head to toe. Although the glutes are the largest and most powerful muscle group in the human body, they often go dormant due to lifestyle choices, leading to a flat, saggy bum. Strong Curves is the cure.
